When printing a photographic negative, it is often desirable to enlarge and print only a particular region or subject of interest, thereby eliminating unwanted background or excess. Such a process is referred to as "cropping", and usually produces an aesthetically superior print. Such cropping is performed during the actual printing of the negative, and typically requires operator interaction with the complex controls of a photographic printer. Accordingly, professional photographers, who do their own printing, routinely crop their prints to provide maximum visual impact.
In the past, amateur photographers, who sent their negatives to laboratories for printing, either had to forfeit the benefits of cropping, or rely on typically unreliable methods of communicating the desired cropping to the lab. Such methods included, for example, written descriptions of the desired cropping and/or hand-marking of the negatives.
As technology improved, communications between amateur photographers and photographic laboratories become more sophisticated, and the cropping process became more reliable. U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,924, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, shows a system wherein a film to video player is made available for use by a customer/amateur photographer. A customer displays a selected negative on the film to video player, and manipulates zooming and scanning controls to define the region to be printed. The zoom and scan information defining the region to be printed is magnetically coded onto the negative film, and the negative film is sent to a photographic laboratory for printing. The laboratory places the film in a specially designed printer which reads the magnetically coded information, and adjusts its zoom and scan parameters accordingly to print the selected region of the negative.
U.K. published Patent Application GB No. 2 174 568 A shows a system wherein an operator manipulates a cropping frame on a positive display of the negative to be printed. When the region to be printed is identified within the cropping frame, a thermal print of the negative is made including the cropping frame. This thermal print is forwarded to the photographic laboratory, which uses the cropping frame as a guide in producing the final, cropped print.
While the above described methods/apparatus are more reliable when written communications, they suffer from the disdvantage of requiring the final print to be made by a professional photographic laboratory. Such a process requires a time delay, often of several days or a week, which is undesirable to both the customer and the laboratory. The customer is understandably irritated by the inconvenience, while the laboratory loses business as the customer loses interest.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,926, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, shows a film video player/printer which permits a customer to crop and print his negatives substanially immediately and by himself. The system includes a film-video player having user-controls which permit the customer to crop a negative in a straightforward manner on a positive video display. Upon completing this cropping process, the customer simply presses a "print" button, and a photographic print is made which is identical in composition to the video display. The system includes a photographic processor which operates to provide the completed print in a manner of minutes. This presents a substantial improvement over the prior art - both in terms of reliability (i.e. the customer gets exactly what he specifies) and time (i.e. the customer receives his print while he waits).
While representing a substantial improvement over the prior art, the system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,926 requires the use of a relatively complex and expensive optical apparatus. More specifically, the optical components of the system include a single zoom lens, used in combination with a pivoting mirror and auxiliary lens, to both provide the video display and print the negative. In providing the video display, the mirror is removed from the optical path, and the auxiliary lens is inserted to image the negative onto an electronic imager. The magnification of the zoom lens is then adjusted to aid in cropping the negative on the video display. Once the desired cropping is achieved, the auxiliary lens is pivoted out of the optical path, and the mirror is pivoted in to produce the print. This optical system, including the pivoting mirror and auxiliary lens, is relatively complex and expensive. Further, while producing adequate results, it is to some extent a compromise between the optical system needed to provide the video display and the optical system necessary for printing.